The present invention relates generally to pedometers having a waist mounted stride-counting device and transmitter, and a wrist-mounted receiver and display. The invention also relates to a distance calculation device that calculates a distance walked or run based on an algorithm that converts a base stride length and a base stride rate to an actual stride length for use in calculating the distance traveled.
Pedometers are known which include devices or algorithms for determining the distance a person travels on foot. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,371,945 discloses an electronic pedometer that calculates distance by electronically measuring the length of each stride taken by a user. Stride length is measured by ultrasonic waves generated by an ultrasonic module strapped to one leg and an ultrasonic detector worn on the other leg. A program compensates for a variety of measurement errors and the results are displayed on a wrist-mounted display after being transmitted by VHF waves from the leg to the wrist.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,771,394 discloses a computer shoe with a heel-mounted electronic device with an inertia footstrike counter, a timer, a sound generating device, a battery, and a gate array for counting time and footstrikes to calculate distance and running time as a function of stride time. Although recognizing the important relationship of stride length and foot speed, the shoe in this patent requires data from at least 15 test runs or walks and the data must be user-entered in pairs of footstrikes and elapsed time to cover a pre-determined distance. Further, user adjustments of time must be performed to accommodate start and stop times, and the number of counted footstrikes is increased one percent to overcome inherent errors in the inertia step counter. The shoe-mounted device is subject to damage from impact, dirt, and water, and requires a stay-at-home computer with which to interface. There is no means disclosed to transmit data to a wrist-mounted display device or an "on-board" computing device that provides "real time" data to a runner.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,942 discloses a pedometer and calorie measuring device that includes a wrist-mounted step counter and a fixed stride length to calculate distance traveled. Wrist-mounted step counters are known to be inaccurate because they assume a step for every arm movement. Even with error correction, such a device will provide less accurate step counts than a leg or waist-mounted counter. Further, fixed stride lengths do not take into account the fact that stride length varies with rate of movement.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,117,444 discloses a pedometer and calibration method with two calibration modes. First, a user travels a predetermined "half-distance" for the device to count and store the number of strides in that distance. Next, the user travels a second distance with the step counter comparing actual steps to the steps in memory and a current trip memory are incremented by a tenth of a "whole unit" distance. There is no correlation between stride length and stride rate which requires the user to re-calibrate the device when walking as opposed to running.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,725 discloses a pulse meter with pedometer function to determine pace and pulse rate of a user. The meter uses pulse wave base data compared to actual pulse wave data rates.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,476,427 discloses a pace display device utilizing a base rate for traveling pre-set distances in successive trails. The device calculates step counts and rates, and compares actual step count rates to display data to a user for comparison of present running rates to previous rates.
Thus, there is a need for a simple, but highly accurate, pedometer that displays distance traveled, pace, speed, heart rate, and other important information on an easily read wrist-mounted device.